8:55 a.m. - 04.09.2003
Stark Raving Mad...mad...mad
I've decided that I'm an equal mix country mouse and city mouse. I get it from my grandparents. They remind me of the grandparents in Sixteen Candles.
My dad's side of the family is the country side. They're from Charleston SC. And although they've always lived in suburbia, the simple fact that they're South Carolinian makes them decidedly country. My grandparents enjoy trips to Maggie Valley TN, Dollywood, and watching people clog. My extended SC family is much the same. My cousin is fairly well to do in Charleston - but from being the owner operator of a tow-truck company.
My mom's family is another story. She was born and raised a DC city-girl. My grandfather was the vice president of a very large metro bank, and his free time was spent in the swinging DC high society of embassy parties and rubbing elbows with the world's diplomatic and financial creme de la creme. My grandmother speaks of a summons to a White House party in there somewhere.
And yet, my "city" grandfather grew up on a farm and spoke of it fondly and my "country" grandfather grew up in the city. That just adds to the mix.
And my parent's?
My dad was into folk music, late-era Beatles and med-school, and considers himself a learned and knowledgable man. Which he is.
(He claims to have "tried" to go to Woodstock when he was studying in NY and got within 20 miles before he was stuck in unmoving traffic. The only way to make the final 20 miles was to walk. So he and his friends went home.)
My dad's modern day equivalent would be an emo-boy decked out in doc martins and chillin in a coffee shop, listening to Pete Yorn, David Gray, Rufus Wainwright, and maybe Dave Matthews but only when Dave is playing with Tim Reynolds. He'd jam to the Strokes.
My mom was a city girl into R & B and early-era Beatles. She went to a junior college. Then she became a housewife.
My mom's modern day equivalent would be a rap lovin', boy-band lovin', TRL lovin' teen. She would roll around in her pimped out Escalade with her homegirls listening to Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake and Blink-182.
How these two types get together is beyond me. But they did, and I'm the product of such a union. Making me even more country mouse/city mouse.
There's one more thing worth mentioning about my dad's side of the family. There is a penchant for eccentrics, mental breakdowns, and eerie longevity. My tow-truck owning cousin is a jolly but off-kilter fellow. My grandmother has recently lost her sense of reason, but really it's no change for her since she believes she is the reincarnation of Scarlet O'Hara. If you confront her with this claim now she says it was all a joke - but I belive she likes to believe it. I always had a personal chuckle when watching Ghostbusters. At the beiginning they ask the librarian if she has a family history of delusions, to which she answers, "My Uncle thought he was St. Jerome." Bill Murray: "I'd call that a big yes."
The clincher is my Uncle Ernest. My Scarlet O'Hara-grandmother's brother. A perfectly nice man. He was an engineer in WWII, fighting in Burma and helping to build the Ledo Road through China. But now he is something of a hermit. He always was, but since the death of his wife, my Aunt Ann (an active sorority girl 'til her dying day), he has become more and more of an eccentric hermit. He has a nice little suburban home in Charleston - with nothing in it. He recently donated all of his furniture and belongings to charity, claiming not to need it. When his washer or dryer broke he got rid of them, claiming to never have needed it.
Now he has an empty house with lines of rope strung throughout that he hangs his wet laundry on. He has a guest room that lies empty save for a singular bed that he hand built himself - to the scaled-down dimensions of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece.
In his room there is another hand-crafted bed and a folding card table next to it. On the table are piles of textbooks and library books. Sociology, Theology, Buddhism, Astronomy, Economics, Trigonometry - you name it, he reads it for leisure. He also likes to take rope and tie intricate knots that double as mind-puzzles. He also likes to tie rope into intricate patterns like lace doilies.
My point? My mom's side are easy-going fun-loving city folk. My dad's side are laid-back but eccentric southerners with hermit-like tendancies. City mice and country mice.
My mom says she sees the tendancies towards being an eccentric hermit in me already and fears a move to Charleston on my part. And Seattle is too far for her liking.
Do I want to be an active city mouse in Seattle, or hermit mouse in Charleston. I know you're getting tired of reading about this - but how do you think I feel? So I sit here and continue to drive myself stark raving mad. But it's okay - I have a family history of it.
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At the end of the Disney version of Robin Hood, Prince John chases Sir Hiss into the burning castle as Sir Hiss cries, "Help! He's gone stark raving MAD!" and the word 'mad' echoes away as they disappear into the flames. It always sends chills up my spine. As a kid I thought it implied their deaths. But then a few minutes later we see them working on the chain gang in a rock quarry. So that's a happy ending. But I'd prefer the disturbing ending.
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